Reach and engagement are the two main metrics that companies typically use to track social media marketing, but there there are still questions about how to optimize their efforts and marketing dollars between these two measurements. While it is often thought that reach and engagement are equally important, ideal optimization between the two depends on the overall goals of the business. This article will help to explain both metrics, and look at their overall value for marketing efforts.

What is reach?
Reach is a measure of the range of influence of any content - it is the measurement of how content is spread across various social media channels. At the most basic level, reach can be thought of as the number of eyes your content is being seen by. For example, on Facebook, total reach is the number of people that have seen your post. Your post reaches someone when it shows up on their news feed. Reach is simply the amount of people that have seen your post whether they engage in the post at all.

Total reach can be broken down into three categories, wich include: organic, viral and paid. Organic reach is the number of unique people who saw your post on their feed. Viral reach is the number of unique people who saw your post from a story published by a friend or someone you know. Paid reach is the number of unique people who saw your post through an ad.

What is engagement?
Engagement measures the actions taken by users on your posts. Continuing with the Facebook example, engagement is measured as the number of times your post is liked, shared or commented on. So the more interesting or unique your post is, the more likely you will have increased activity and engagement on these posts.

Engagement is largely driven by the content of posts and the strategy of a company’s marketing team. It is achieved over time as marketing efforts build a dynamic community where consumers actively share content and stories.

Should you reach? Or should you engage?
Now that you know that both reach and engagement are critical components within the marketing strategy, the question is, which is the best strategy for companies to follow? Increased reach leads to increased awareness, while increased engagement leads to building a strong community around your brand.

It makes sense that your business would want to extend its reach out to as many people as possible, however, many times recipients are not really looking at this message, it is just being displayed on a site they are on. While reach is important as a building block, engagement is a better way to measure whether or not a given message is resonating and helping to build and promote engagement, while getting followers actively involved. Although both reach and engagement are important, the way to really optimize these tools is by using them both. Reach first, and engage second.

If your business needs help optimizing its marketing efforts or has no idea where to even start, Northeast Kingdom Online can help! We offer a variety of social media marketing tools which will give you the freedom to worry about other important details of your business, while we worry about every aspect of your social marketing. Give us a call today at 802-473-1887 and see how we can help minimize stress and optimize your marketing performance!